Media Relations

Despite being more than a week out from his Saturday showdown with
Kenny
Florian(Pictures), UFC lightweight contender
Roger
Huerta(Pictures) was already sticking his chin out
and risking damage -- not to his face, but to his career.

On two separate occasions, Huerta -- who has been anointed the
sport’s Latino Hope -- mumbled disgruntlement with his paycheck
signatories. In a cover story for Fight! magazine (bombastic
exclamation point theirs), he expressed incredulity that the UFC
had allegedly given him only a 50-dollar per diem for a press tour;
the second snafu involved production staff editing prefight hype
comments to make it seem as though Huerta was dismissive of
Florian’s chances in their fight. The 20-1-1 lightweight also had
thoughts on the UFC’s pay scale (low), and the lack of lucrative
sponsorship opportunities.

In other words, Huerta won’t be breaking his back towing the
company line anytime soon.

It’s rare for athletes of any rung on the hierarchy to complain
openly about management, even if they have sufficient reason to.
Don King siphoned millions from athletes like Mike Tyson and Terry
Norris, but the allegations and insults didn’t start flying until
years later; few ball players circulate negative comments about
team owners. Public criticisms, if they’re voiced at all, are
filtered through management or other third-party quotes.

Of course, even if they feel slighted, all of these men can dry
their teary ducts with the stacks of hundred-dollar bills
populating their nightstands and coffee tables. Money has a
predictable way of assuaging any bitter feelings. For some MMA
athletes, respect is often seen as a salve for the lack of a
seven-zero paycheck.

There’s some degree of irony in the fact that Huerta likely sees
the seller’s market in the sport as a safety net for his commentary
-- if the UFC doesn’t want him, someone else will. He may also be
convinced of the fact that Zuffa’s investment in building his
“brand” is not something they’ll be eager to let another
organization capitalize on.

Huerta’s PR rebellion has a downside, though: No matter how many
MMA promoters bid for his services, none have the kind of long-term
security offered by the UFC. While other companies bleed money like
a hemophiliac wielding an errant nail gun, they have a stable
future. While others are desperate for any kind of charity-case
network deal offered to them, the UFC has a longstanding and
harmonious relationship with Spike. And on and on.

It’s telling that several former employees of the Pride promotion
have only recently come forward to complain of suspicious backstage
machinations, late booking, threats to cut contracts unless they
fought injured -- things that would give an athlete just cause to
call every paper in town were swept under the rug until Pride’s
well was dry. Why? Because the athletes couldn’t walk across the
street for a similarly sized paycheck. In an era of the UFC
headlining circus tents in Dothan, Ala., Pride was the only real
show in town.

Now, Huerta likely figures that if his talk results in some
scorched-earth retaliation, he can head to any number of umbrellas.
Problem is, none of them hold any promise of staying open for long.
Elite’s ratings plummeted 43 percent on CBS, a pattern likely to
continue when -- not if -- poster hulk Kimbo Slice loses; Dream is
having ratings woes of their own in Japan; Affliction is being
improbably generous.

It’s not nearly as expansive and competitive an MMA world as the
media thinks. Not in the long term, at least. There’s only the
illusion of it.

If the UFC’s Dana White boxercised a wall after reading Huerta’s
comments, he should probably consider the idea that he was the
precedent for candid MMA commentary. Men like Bud Selig and David
Stern aren’t often the brunt of complaints because they discuss
athletes in professorial tones; White, in contrast, has referred to
men under his employ as “knuckleheads” and “the dumbest human being
I’ve ever met.”

If you’re allowed to give as good as you get, Huerta was actually a
model of restraint.

What fighters owe companies is a base level of voiced respect: If
there are contractual issues or management conflicts, it’s in good
taste to keep those discussions behind closed doors. Likewise,
promoters should refrain from publicly lambasting current or past
employees.

MMA may have outgrown high school gymnasiums, but there are times
when the dialogue hasn’t.

In Brief:

The Chicago Tribune’s Rick Morrissey was the latest mainstream
journo to scratch his head at the current popularity of MMA. (As
with most naysayers, it’s a head covered in gray hair.) In his Aug.
4 editorial, “Boxing Beats the Heck Out of MMA,” Morrissey
proclaims that MMA isn’t as violent as boxing and therefore pales
in comparison because “it’s the blood we’re after most.” What
refreshing psychosis.

Morrissey also questions the uneven records of popular MMA
athletes, citing Randy
Couture(Pictures)’s 16-8 mark. Unlike boxing’s
paper tigers, I cannot recall a time in which the UFC handed
Couture a free pass in any fight, which would likely explain the
discrepancy between his numbers and that of a Roy Jones, Jr., who
was fond of brutalizing refrigerator repairmen in his HBO
heyday.

As a film for MMA purists, “Red Belt” (Sony Home Video, Aug. 26)
fails miserably. Writer/director David Mamet depicts prizefighting
as a corrupt and sadistic practice where literally tying an
opponent’s hand behind his back is the zenith of pay-per-view
spectacle.

As a meditation on the philosophy of martial arts, however --
particularly the existentialism of Mamet’s beloved jiu-jitsu --
“Red Belt” succeeds beautifully. The owner of a financially
drowning dojo, Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor, spouting rhetoric like
Rickson
Gracie(Pictures) on amphetamines) thumbs his nose
at competitive athletics, but an errant bullet initiates a series
of events that finally force his hands around someone’s throat.

Mamet eschews most conventions of the genre, but the film would’ve
been better served by something approaching realism in the staged
fight sequences -- especially since the climactic bout in the aisle
is a gi-clad technical wonder.

Still worth watching, particularly if you secretly wished that Alec
Baldwin’s snake-eyed “fixer” in “Glengarry Glen Ross” knew his
triangle chokes. Compared to the other MMA-themed movie of the
summer DVD season, “Never Back Down,” it’s practically
Shakespeare.